There’s no sign that a move by the American Farm Bureau Federation to terminate Illinois Farm Bureau membership is spreading to other Farm Bureau organizations in other states such as Iowa, AFBF President Zippy Duvall says.

Duvall has said the move to terminate IFB membership was in response to IFB’s decision to allow its controlled affiliate company, Country Financial, to eliminate the Farm Bureau membership eligibility requirement for nonfarm insurance policyholders in Illinois. The move by AFBF to expel IFB by Dec. 20 has been delayed until pending litigation has been settled.

“Obviously, that concern’s there,” says Duvall, who was in Des Moines last week for the Iowa Farm Bureau’s annual meeting. “But I would tell you that our board of directors and all the [state] farm bureaus across the country have been very united in how we approach this. I don’t think there’s anybody else out there thinking about it. But, as leadership changes, as things change going down the road, who knows what might happen? So [we] don't want to set a dangerous precedent.”

Duvall said the dispute boils down to membership agreements between state farm bureaus and the national group. The AFBF has almost 5.9 million members and receives $5 in dues per Farm Bureau member, regardless of farming status.

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In the case of IFB, it has 400,000 members; only 78,000 are farmer-members. Duvall has said IFB’s membership decision is expected to cause the loss of hundreds of thousands of Farm Bureau members, to the detriment of Illinois farmers, Illinois county farm bureaus, IFB and the entire Farm Bureau organization.

“We think they violated the membership agreement,” Duvall says. “We want to emphasize that this organization was created, controlled and operated by farmers for 105 years. That’s what we want to emphasize. It needs to continue that way.”

Being expelled from the AFBF means the Illinois Farm Bureau would lose all national voting delegates and any say in developing policy to direct federal farm lobbying efforts, and it could lose the right to use the Farm Bureau name.

What’s behind it

In mid-September, Country Financial notified its customers that beginning Jan. 1, it would no longer require Farm Bureau membership for nonfarm policies. It would continue to require an active Farm Bureau membership for farm-related policies.

IFB currently has about 400,000 members, of whom about 74,000 are farmer-members with voting rights. Those farmer-members represent about 75% of Illinois farmers.

Country Financial CEO Jim Jacobs said the decision was made by Country Financial management and supported by its board. In his Oct. 2 statement to the AFBF, Jacobs said inflation, supply-chain challenges and severe weather disasters “have created untenable cost pressures for our company.”

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He added that many nonfarm clients don’t understand why they need to join a farm organization and don’t tolerate the friction of the membership requirement, even in the digital age. He explained that some clients have lost coverage in their time of need because they didn’t pay their Farm Bureau dues on time, leading to frustration and panic.

“We have reached a point where the benefits of a membership requirement for non-ag products do not outweigh its challenges,” Jacobs said. “Despite significant efforts to remove the friction caused by this requirement — including investing more than $15 million to combine the Farm Bureau dues with premium notices — we have not been able to entirely remove this point of frustration for our clients.”

Lawsuit filed

The IFB filed a lawsuit against the AFBF following AFBF’s initial decision to expel IFB from membership.

In addition to asking that the membership termination be reversed, IFB’s lawsuit alleges that IFB should retain use of the Farm Bureau name. The IFB also claims that the AFBF violated the terms of a 1990 settlement agreement between the two organizations, and it claims that the AFBF defamed the IFB by sending contentious emails.

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“I’m limited in what I can talk about due to the lawsuit, but nothing has really changed,” Duvall says. To resolve the dispute, Duvall says IFB could reverse its decision.

National voice

There is precedent for state organizations leaving the AFBF. The Alabama Farmers Federation left the AFBF in 1981 and returned in 2005. Different circumstances were involved in that case, but the Alabama organization eventually returned because it recognized the value of being part of a national organization, Duvall says.

“We have stood on the fact that strength comes in numbers, and we have provided a voice for almost 6 million members across this country,” Duvall says. “That's huge. It's the largest general farm organization in the country, created, run and operated by farmers. And that's the way it's been done for 105 years, and that's the way we expect it to be done in the future.”

Holly Spangler, editor of our sister publication in Illinois, Prairie Farmer, contributed to this story.